Modern buildings, including homes, offices, and industrial buildings, require a great deal of electrical cable to accommodate all the electrical accouterments that are now desired. Besides the standard power circuits, low voltage lighting circuits, security alarm or fire warning systems, voice communication intercom circuits, telephone circuits, and high frequency television and cable circuits, there are often requirements for cable circuits to transmit data at high speeds extending into the gigabit range.
Electrical contractors and tradesmen have often installed electrical wiring in homes or industrial buildings as a sequence of separate and distinct projects. Wiring for electric power in the building might be done first. Then the intercom and security systems are installed. Then the wiring for telephone and high speed data circuits might be another and additional project.
When high speed data circuits are required, both the installation and meeting performance goals can be a daunting task. Minimizing cost is often a high priority. And when some cables are intended to later be interconnected by patchcords or switchboards into a network system, the complexity of installation and meeting performance requirements is greatly increased.
Prior art test instruments have been available for dealing with many different aspects of cable installation in homes, office building, or industrial buildings. But the comprehensive overall management of both the technical and the business aspects of such a project has apparently not been fully addressed.